


Eat and Be Eaten

by barbaricyawp



Series: In Hell I'll Be in Good Company [7]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gentle Sex, Hand Jobs, M/M, Oral Sex, Rape Recovery, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-11 12:11:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16475333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barbaricyawp/pseuds/barbaricyawp
Summary: After everything that happened, they keep happening to each other.The long-awaited epilogue for the In Hell I'll Be in Good Company series.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to publish this all in one chapter, but it's getting longer than I'd planned, and I think I need the incentive of readership to get this thing done. Enjoy the first 3k for now.

 

* * *

The slogan of Hell: Eat or be eaten. The slogan of Heaven: Eat and be eaten.

-W.H. Auden, _A Certain World: A Commonplace Book_

* * *

 

A log snaps in the fire and Steve startles awake, flailing up. His whole body is alight with tension, with the panicked sense that something is wrong. He looks immediately to the empty cot where Bucky should be. Where Bucky isn’t.

He’s gone.

The prosthetic is still in its case by the cryotank, unopened. And Bucky’s duffle bag sits untouched, still unzipped. The food rations are fully stocked. All of Bucky’s things are still in the cabin. Somehow, that only fuels Steve’s panic.

What if Bucky woke up as the Winter Soldier? What if he was confused, he's always so confused when he first wakes up, and what if he thought he was in danger? What if he’s heading back toward HYDRA now? What if Steve doesn’t find him in time?

Steve rips himself out of the blankets and shoves his feet into his boots without bothering with the laces. He bumps his shoulder hard against the doorframe in his effort to scramble outside, casting his vision down the narrow path through the trees that leads to the cabin. If Bucky was going to make an escape, then it would have to be in that direction.

It’s nearly pitch-black tonight, but he can make do with the sliver of moon hanging low in the sky. The sun will come up soon, though that might not be much of a benefit if Bucky makes it to the truck before Steve can catch him. If Bucky makes it to the truck, then Steve has a snowball's chance in hell.

He tenses, muscles coiled and ready to set into a dead sprint.

“Hey, Steve,” Bucky says from somewhere behind him. “What’re you doing up?”

Steve whips around to see his friend casually leaning against the cabin, gazing upward at the night sky. In his surprise, Steve trips over his untied boot laces and lands face first into the rocks.

Bucky’s laughing, but not taunting, just amused by (and maybe even sympathetic to) Steve’s clumsiness. He offers his hand and Steve takes it, his face hot. Bucky is still snorting through his nose, the laugh dissolving into an undignified chortle.

“I thought you’d left,” Steve says, brushing the dirt off his knees.

“You have a cut on your face,” Bucky says instead of acknowledging Steve’s concern. He does that sometimes, always has. It’s strangely comforting. “We should clean that out, so you don’t heal over the dirt.”

Steve sucks air in between his teeth. “Yeah, I’ve done that before.”

Bucky nods. He doesn’t say it, but Steve knows that he’s also speaking from experience. Steve tries not to dwell on it; it will drive him mad if he lets himself speculate wildly about Bucky’s time in HYDRA captivity. There's too much there to guess about. How he came to be so brainwashed, how long he struggled against it, how often he relapsed into Bucky if ever...It's too much. So, Steve doesn’t. And respects that Bucky wouldn’t want him to, anyway.

Bucky goes into the cabin to retrieve the first aid kid. He makes a fire, a big one that lights up the woods all around them, and instructs Steve to take a seat. There, he leans close to Steve and carefully extracts the gravel from Steve’s face with tweezers.

Unabashed, Steve watches Bucky as he works. He tugs out pieces of gravel with the precision of a surgeon, barely catching skin with each pass of the tweezers. Either way, Steve can't feel the pain right now.

The blond ends of Bucky's eyelashes catch gold in the flickering light of the fire. Gorgeous. There's really no other word for the way it makes Steve's heart swell in his chest, suffocating him. Steve has gotten used to seeing Bucky’s face in the orange firelight, but still hasn’t managed to swallow the lump that rises in his throat at the sight. Bucky's jaw casts purple shadows over the columns of his neck, pooling in the divot. Steve stares at that now, mouth dry.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Bucky says, interrupting Steve's thoughts.

And when Steve looks up, he sees that Bucky is looking him straight in the eye. It’s disarming; his eyes are heavily shadowed, and that’s not so unusual—Bucky has always had deep-set eyes—but what’s new is the manic tinge pulling at his eyelids. Like he still can’t quite get settled, like he’s still on the watch for the next threat.

But Steve can map a hundred differences on Bucky. None of them really matter. He’s held that hand and helped shave that face. He’s punched that stomach, slept on that lap, leant on that shoulder.

There’s a faded pink scar from an infected mosquito bite on Bucky’s bicep that he got when he was thirteen, and Steve remembers the summer he got it because that was the first time they’d ever gone camping alone, and it was that same summer when Steve noticed the dark, fine trail of hair on Bucky’s belly that led down into his pants...and damn, he really shouldn't let his mind wander there right now.

"I'm not going anywhere," Bucky repeats, giving Steve a quizzical stare.

Steve sighs, hoping the firelight will cover the heated flush on his face. “I’m sorry. I know that. I wasn’t thinking.”

The look that passes over Bucky’s face then is totally unreadable. And Steve hates that. There was a time when Steve spoke the language of Bucky’s face fluently. And now there are whole phrases encrypted from him. Entire passages he can’t make sense of.

“For a guy with a big brain, you seem to forget to use it a lot.” 

“Yeah, wish I could say the same about your big mouth.” 

Bucky laughs, the kind of laugh that crinkles his nose and exposes his gums. There’s no greater feeling than that.

Testing his luck, Steve asks, “Why did you come out here anyway?”

Finished with cleaning his face, Bucky sets aside the tweezers, smiling secretively. At least Steve can still tell when Bucky is playing coy. Jesus Christ.

“What?” Steve says, punching his thigh. It’s just barely a tap, but Bucky humors him by pretending to flinch.

“Hey, careful there. You could shatter someone’s femur that way.”

And that signals to Steve that he’s not getting any straight answers out of Bucky tonight. So, he pulls his friend into a headlock, grinds his knuckles into his scalp, and doubles over when Bucky elbows him in the ribs.

“Oh,” he says, still wheezing a little. “It’s on.”

It quickly transforms into a tussle. They wrestle like young men, striking light punches and catching limbs, until Steve has Bucky pinned face down, one hand between his shoulder blades. One moment, everything is fine, and Bucky is laughing.

Steve really should have been more concerned about triggering a relapse.

As if flipping a switch, Bucky goes tense underneath him. His breathing hard, his hand grasps desperately into the dirt, looking for purchase. He’s not quite fighting against Steve, seems frozen in panic. A deer in the headlights, knowing that the impact is coming.

“Get off,” he croaks, wavering on the vowels.

Steve leaps off him in a moment, mouth already full of apologies. When his friend gets up stiffly from the ground, Steve expects to be confronted with the Winter Soldier. Instead, Bucky just brushes himself off, takes a bracing breath, and offers Steve a hand. 

“Second time tonight I’m scooping you off the ground,” Bucky says. And though he’s smiling, there’s still an edge to his posture, to his tone. “Let’s go back to bed.”

Steve casts a look to the east, where the sun hasn’t yet risen. “Maybe we can even sleep in.”

“Buddy,” Bucky says, “I haven’t known what time it is since we got here.”

Steve snorts and follows him back to the cabin.

 

\---

 

The next day, Steve wakes to find Bucky missing again, but can hear the _chop crack thump thump_ of him splitting wood behind the cabin. No longer in a panic-induced rush, Steve gets dressed lethargically, exhausted from a bad night’s sleep. Bucky and Steve’s clothes are no longer separated into their designated duffle bags but are now in a tangled heap at the foot of the cot.

Usually, Bucky seems to be able to discern their respective flannels based on smell alone. The thrill of seeing him press one of what-could-be-Steve’s flannels to his nose then _put it on_ is enough to heat Steve’s face. 

Unlike his friend, _friend_  he reminds himself _,_ Steve can’t tell the difference between the clothes that belong to him and those that belong to Bucky. He puts on a sweater and sets to the routine of the morning.

If Bucky is splitting wood, then breakfast falls to Steve’s domain. He takes his Zoloft knockoff, swallowing the two pills dry, and focuses on the task at hand. Noting that they’re nearly out of firewood, Steve feeds the stove and puts on a kettle of river water to boil. He makes breakfast, yawning into his fist the whole time. When he’s made a steaming tower of pancakes, liberally soaked with syrup, he goes outside.

It’s an unusually warm morning, and Bucky has taken off his coat and flannel, leaving on just his undershirt. Modern men don’t typically wear undershirts, but Bucky and Steve do. 

Without meaning to, Steve watches the circular movement of Bucky’s labor. His back is damp under the shirt, gooseflesh over his shoulders and arm. Splitting wood with a hatchet usually requires two hands, but Bucky has the control and skill to accomplish the task with one. It takes the participation of his whole body. His legs at a wide, powerful stance. His torso flexing back and forth as if in dance.

Bucky has the log jammed onto the blade of his hatchet, ready to swing down onto the block to split. Steve calls out to him, interrupting him midswing. Bucky looks up, beams at Steve and the pancakes, before he misses and whacks the log into his shin.

The log splits, and so does his shinbone.

Steve drops the plate and rushes to Bucky, who has now staggered down onto one knee and is observing the blood pooling around the broken limb as if it mildly surprises him. Steve hauls him up by the armpits. He half-carries, half-drags his friend to the bench by the firepit, where they sat last night. They leave a streak of blood where they pass. The bright red sight of it makes Steve’s stomach roil.

Bucky sees it too. “We’ll need to wash that up,” he says, so logically his tone verges on robotic. “Otherwise it’ll attract animals.”

Steve has seen Bucky hurt, severely hurt, multiple times since he discovered him in HYDRA captivity. And each time, Bucky has accepted the pain with philosophical grace. As if he anticipated this pain years ago and was just waiting for it to find him.

Blood gushes from his splintered shin, but Bucky remains lucid and calm. He looks down on it with blank impassivity. Surveilling the damage. For a tense moment, Steve worries that Bucky has disassociated into the Winter Soldier, but it is Bucky who looks up to him with clear blue eyes and a soft smile. Bucky who then looks back to the pancakes abandoned in the dust and scowls.

“Fuck, Steve,” he says, grinning, “I wanted to eat those.”

Steve has a flashback, suddenly, to their time with HYDRA. A cold cell, that cell was always freezing. The rank smell of Steve himself, but also of sweat, of sex. Bucky smelled constantly of sex and blood in those days, it's hard to parse out particular experiences. Maybe it was that terrible time they were tied together, that had made Steve cry, or _worse_ the time with the hook, but he remembers Bucky in pain. He remembers Bucky’s eyes were big and wet, too agonized to hold back the tears, but still Bucky had smiled at Steve.

He’d looked Steve in the eye and found something inside himself to smile.

This is Steve’s fault--the broken shin, the time with HYDRA, all of it--and shame seeps through him. It's a terrible burden, one that he's been forgiven for, but feels the weight of nonetheless. Avoiding his eyes, Steve balls up Bucky’s flannel and goes to press it against the wound—a jagged mouth gaping in his shin, the white jut of his bone like teeth—but Bucky strikes his hand away.

“You’ll ruin the shirt,” Bucky says by way of explanation. “Just set the bone so it heals straight. It’ll stop bleeding here in a second, anyway.”

Steve hates this idea, feels like he should do something more, maybe even get him to a hospital to prevent infection. But Bucky knows best. A hospital would call too much attention to them anyway. So, he sets the flannel aside and helps Bucky rest his leg flat over the log. Careful not to jostle the broken bones, Steve rolls up his pant leg. Then, he inexpertly guides the bone ends back together. His fingers slip on the blood, but find purchase when he grips them tighter. Bucky hisses a little bit at that, but doesn’t whine. 

“Jesus Christ, Bucky,” Steve murmurs. “This looks terrible.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Bucky says. “I’ll be able to walk by tomorrow. Look.”

The wound has stopped bleeding and, when Steve releases them, the bones stay together without needing to be held. He sighs in relief; Bucky’s recovery time is faster than his own. Thank God for small mercies, Steve supposes.

Steve nods to answer a question no one asked, still burning knowing that he caused an injury of this scope. He should have waited until Bucky had split the log and set down the hatchet. He should have been more careful. Bucky startles easier now, and Steve _knows_ that, and acted without thinking. Bucky deserves better than that.

He swivels his head to apologize, but finds that Bucky isn’t paying him, or his leg, any mind. Bucky’s attention is back on the pancakes, sighing as if it’s the great loss of the morning.

“Please tell me that you have another stack in the cabin.”

As bad as it feels, Steve can’t help it. He snorts, and shakes his head. “No, but I can always make so me more. Should I carry you back into the cabin?”

“Yeah, the floor is level in there. It’ll help it set straight.” He looks up to the skies, they both do. A perfect blue. “We should get inside anyway, storm’s coming in.” 

“How can you tell?” 

“We’re old men, Steve. We can feel it in our joints.”

It’s a longer walk to the cabin, so Steve has to carry him gingerly under knee and shoulder, so as not to re-break the healing bones. Bucky slings his arm around his shoulder and cracks a joke about how much the tables have turned.

Steve knows that his size alarms Bucky, but Bucky has also admitted that it makes it easier to reconnect the dots of his memory. “Scrawny Steve is pre-Zola, big Steve is post,” he’d explained casually, as if this wasn’t a completely ordinary way to tell time.

It’s good to be helpful in any way he can be, Steve supposes.

“Set me down on the floor,” Bucky says. “Flatter than the cot. More stable, too." 

And Steve obliges, settling him onto the neat fold of blankets arranged next to the cot. Bucky doesn’t even wince when his leg meets the ground, bones resettling. Steve knows that Bucky’s therapists have tried to encourage him to show pain, but he represses the expression as if subconsciously. Almost as if he’s lost the ability.

Steve is making himself too sad, the Zoloft hasn't had a chance to catch up, so he focuses on the task of pancakes. With all the care of a seasoned soccer mom, Steve makes one with Mickey Mouse ears. He delights when he presents it to Bucky hot off the stove, and Bucky recognizes the character instantly.

“Hey, you remember that movie _Bambi_?” Bucky says, cheeks full of syrup and pancake.

“Yup,” Steve says and flips over another pancake on a plate to offer him.

Reaching up, Bucky takes the steaming pancake with his bare fingers and drops it onto his plate. “That movie fucked me up.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. 

Steve tries to do the mental math on when Bucky could have seen _Bambi,_ but can’t remember seeing it when they lived in Brooklyn. Steve himself had only seen the film in his years after he was thawed from the ice. Who would have shown it to Bucky? Not HYDRA, certainly not. Why would they? Unless it was some sort of sick joke. Some sort of play on his name, maybe? Steve’s head and chest ache, a tight band of pressure around his temples and heart.

“Hey,” Bucky calls, snapping Steve out of it. “You didn’t congratulate me.”

“On what?”

“A milestone in my recovery,” Bucky grins. “I broke my leg, in a pretty bad way…”

Steve flinches, wracked with guilt.

Bucky continues unperturbed, “…and didn’t attack you. Not even once.” 

Steve snorts. “I’ll get you a card.”

\---

Later that evening, Steve goes out to collect firewood. The forest is blue, the sun setting rapidly over the peaks of the mountains, and the air has the chill of unfallen snow. Bucky was right; a storm _is_ coming in.

He rounds the corner towards the splitting log and encounters an animal. It's so low to the ground, blending into the dark, that Steve nearly trips over it. Good thing he doesn't actually; it's a porcupine.

Steve has never seen one, and it's bigger than he thought it would be. The size of a dog curled up into a ball. It's sweet looking, Steve notes with some surprise. A prettier animal than it appears in pictures. A strong smell, like oak during a storm, emanates from it. The porcupine's quills are a dark brown in its fur that fade into a light gold where they stick up out of its body. Like Bucky's eyelashes in the firelight.

The porcupine is lapping up the blood, Bucky's blood. It's black muzzle is pressed to the ground as its shockingly pink tongue curls into the dust. As it licks, it makes happy squeaking noises, chattering to itself over its discovered snack. Nature is strange in its brutality.

Steve staggers back, expecting the porcupine to immediately barb him, but when it sees him, it just shuffles away, still chuckling to itself. Its quills rattle against each other as it moves, almost like the wind through the pine trees. In its wake, the porcupine leaves long quills. Steve gathers them carefully in his palm, carrying the split wood under his arms.

When he shows Bucky the quills and tells him about the porcupine, Bucky doesn't seem too surprised.

"I told you that it'd attract animals if we didn't clean it up."

"Yeah, but...I was expecting a bear," Steve says, feeling foolish.

"They like salt," Bucky explains. "It probably was after the salt in my blood."

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been stuck on this for a while, but think I've finally wrangled it into a shape I can live with. They say done is sometimes better than perfect.
> 
> Also, I calculated. 33% of this is smut. Just pure fucking. I figured that if I was going to give you guys 50k of pure horror, you deserve 2k of safe and awkward consensual sex. Enjoy.

The night that follows is the coldest night that Steve Rogers has ever experienced. Their tinny radio, propped up above their stove, warned them that the temperatures would be dropping to record lows for the season, and they thought they had adequately prepared.

They had not adequately prepared, not even close. The cold is bone deep and constant. Worse than winter in France. Worse than any night he spent frail and weak from sickness. (It is not worse than being frozen in the Arctic, Steve decides, but it’s a close race.)

Part of the problem is they are not totally protected from the elements. The log cabin isn’t totally sealed off; frosty wind gusts through the cracks between the logs. The fire in the stove cannot compete against the wind.

Every godforsaken corner of the cabin is freezing, but Steve can guess that the floor is worst. 

In the interest of keeping his broken leg straight, Bucky took the floor tonight. He lies on his back, body giving intermittent shivers that he seems to battle down by sheer force of will.

Bucky knows cold, Steve realizes, Bucky was forged in the cold.

And he wants to invite him up into the cot, craves the makeshift furnace of their shared warmth. But every time he considers it, Steve remembers the last time they shared a cot. And when he remembers, his face heats, and his palms sweat, and his nerves get the better of him.

So, selfishly and because he can’t control himself, Steve lets Bucky freeze on the floor and falls into a fitful sleep.

 

\---

 

Steve dreams of HYDRA, of the cold cell they kept him in, of the city he drew on the floor and the city he wants to take Bucky back to. He’ll take him to the lot where their old apartment was. He’ll take him to eat pizza so thin and pooling with grease, it drips off their fingers. He’ll take him to the pier and kiss him the way he’s always meant to, the way he never has.

He dreams of Bucky. He dreams of Bucky. He dreams of Bucky.

 

\---

 

He’s woken a few hours later, when the cot shifts under Bucky’s weight. But he could have just as easily been wakened by the cold; the cabin’s temperature has dropped even lower. Steve’s eyelashes are frozen shut and he tucks his face under the blankets, trying to thaw them.

“Incoming,” Bucky says, bringing the blankets with him. He shoves Steve to the side, and wriggles under the blanket. His movements are stiff, clearly pained as he tries to accommodate for his broken leg.

Instantly, the bed becomes warmer, even as it sags under their combined weight. Each time Bucky shifts, the cot gives a terrible creak. Steve will have to check its weight limit in the morning.

“Your leg,” Steve says hoarsely, muddled with bad sleep.

“Doesn’t matter if it’s broken if I die of hypothermia,” Bucky says wisely, and Steve doesn’t have anything to say to that. He just tries to keep his thoughts to himself.

That night, Steve wakes up three more times. The first time, he wakes up because Bucky has pressed his cold face into Steve’s back.

“Sorry,” Bucky mumbles, but doesn’t make an effort to move. He falls back asleep shortly, his hot breath skimming down Steve’s spine. Steve could elbow him back, or shift away, but Bucky’s arm looped over his waist feels good and warm.

It takes Steve a while to fall back asleep.

The second time he wakes up, he isn’t sure why. Bucky is still tucked up against his back. The cabin is cold, but not much colder than it was when they fell asleep. He considers getting out of the cot to look around. Paranoia is second nature to Steve now. Really, he wouldn’t even term it as _paranoia_ ; it’s just practical vigilance.

The third time he wakes, it’s for a good reason. The cot gives a creaking groan and then promptly collapses, dumping both Steve and Bucky to the floor.

Bucky rolls onto his back and launches himself to his feet. From this movement alone, Steve can tell that he isn’t all there.

Before Bucky can hurt himself, Steve wraps his arms tightly around him. The Winter Soldier elbows him in the gut, hard, but Steve had already braced for it, his abdomen clenched tight. He also tries to stomp Steve’s instep, but it isn’t very effective with his sock feet. The Winter Soldier bites, thrashes, and kicks. They tumble to the floor, struggling, but Steve Rogers holds on.

By now, Nat would have tried to sedate Bucky, or Sam would be calling for the cryotank. He doesn’t blame them; that’s the safest thing to do. But it’s not best for Bucky. Steve just tucks his forehead between Bucky’s shoulder blades and murmurs his apologies, promises that he’s alright, that he’s safe here.

Eventually, the Winter Soldier settles, and Bucky emerges.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says, voice hoarse. “I’m fucking sorry, Steve.”

Steve tucks his jaw over Bucky’s shoulder and hushes him. “It’s alright, pal. Scared me too.” His voice is a little shaky on the delivery, but it seems to work for Bucky.

“When you start trying to murder me every time you get startled, I’ll start feeling better.” But Bucky’s tone is wry and good-humored.

They rearrange the blankets closer to the fire and huddle for warmth now that they’re both flat on the floor. Steve falls asleep and stays asleep. When he wakes up, he finds himself curled up in the curve of Bucky, trying to ball himself under his chin. He's not small enough to fit any more, but Bucky still stretches to accommodate him.

 

\---

 

Bucky’s leg heals within weeks, and they set to the task of preparing for winter before it worsens. They clear every tree, dead or alive, within fifty yards of the cabin and turn it into firewood. A snowstorm is coming in quickly, and they must work quickly.

More than once, Steve's fingers freeze stiff. Bucky comes over every time. He unzips his coat, unbuttons his shirt, and rubs Steve's hands against the bare skin of his chest. As he uses friction to warm his joints, Bucky breathes hot air into the pocket between his palm and chest.

When Steve blushes at the intimacy, Bucky explains, "I'd do it between my hands if I had two of them."

Steve doesn't complain again, just grits his teeth and appreciates the extra heat in his cheeks.

When they're done splitting wood, Steve gets a kick out of the neat stack of firewood piled inside their cabin and under a tarp by the pit. He quotes Henry David Thoreau, “Every man looks upon his wood pile with a sort of affection.” 

To which Bucky wrinkles his nose and says, “Sounds like you want to get romantic with the kindling, Rogers.”

And then they lose a few hours of daylight debating whether or not Bucky has a clean or filthy mind, concluding that no one can live up to Steve’s “ironically contrarian puritan shit” when he "gets so inclined."

 

\---

 

They head down into town to stock up on supplies. The entire drive down, Bucky convinces Steve that he’s ready to go into the store with him. He wants to try it, Bucky insists, wants to see other people. Fluorescent lights and hillbillies be damned. But when they pull up into the big parking lot, Bucky balks.

So, Steve gets a winter’s worth of supplies on his own. The abundance of sheer _stuff_ overwhelms him a little, especially after so much time cooped up alone, but he manages just fine. And, though he doesn’t necessarily agree with the legislation that makes it possible, he purchases a Remington hunting rifle. Bucky marvels at the ability to buy a rifle and toilet paper from the same place. "Good old U.S. of A," Bucky crows. Steve suspects he’s trying to get a rise out of him.

 

\---

 

They stalk elk in the valley and each carry one back after the hunt. In the thick snow that crests the crater, it's a struggle to get footing. Large steps will shrink to small shuffles in the slide of slush underfoot. Just lifting their feet is an effort. And the 700 pounds of elk on Steve's back drives their feet even deeper. He's struggling, keeps shifting the majority of the weight from shoulder to shoulder.

But Bucky, he has the carcass slung over a single shoulder, supported by his single arm. And he weathers the labor with transcendent grace. Sweat gathers at his temples, his braid falls out in damp wisps. It's torture.

They salt the meat and store it in the unused cryotank. “Not the first buck that’s been in there,” Bucky says.

Steve starts crying instantly.

To apologize, Bucky makes him hot cocoa from a paper packet. Steve drinks it one-handed while Bucky gets dinner together. On the packet, Steve draws a hand study; Bucky has such nice, square fingers.

 

\---

 

Later that week, when Steve finds the packet sticking out of a book, he’ll see that Bucky added his own doodle of a middle finger.

He casts a glance over to him. Bucky is at the stove, listening to Paul Simon on their radio, and making instant mashed potato latkas. He's singing along to "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard," lifting his voice off-key as he says goodbye to Ro-oh-sie.

Steve wouldn't have guessed Simon would appeal to Bucky, but he'd always liked anything you could dance to. And he's bopping his head along with the guitar as he flips the latkas with a spatula. The smell of fried potato rises from the cast iron pan, bubbling with oil. And Steve loves him so damn much.  

His chest feels swollen, like there’s a balloon expanding in his ribcage. Eventually, it's going to pop.

 

\---

 

Late one afternoon, Bucky says, “I think it’s time we talked.”

Now that winter has set in, they spend most of their time tucked under the blankets by the fire to conserve body heat. Steve couldn’t be happier with the arrangement. It means he has Bucky right where he wants him, safe and warm.

They’re making their way through reading aloud the books they brought. And Bucky is right here all the time, pressed by his side so he can read along.

Recently, Bucky has been plagued with headaches that make it difficult to read, but he’s making improvements. Where the words and letters used to scramble together, Bucky reports that he can make out whole sentences now before the headache settles in.

Steve doesn’t mind reading aloud, though. Especially when Bucky hums over the way he delivers a sentence. Or rests his temple on Steve’s knee, staring ahead at the fire in the stove while he listens. 

Or when Bucky doesn’t want to read any more Shirley Jackson because “I’ve got the spooks, Stevie,” and Steve holds the book out of his reach, but close enough to read and belt out lines like, “We eat the year away. We eat the spring and the summer and the fall. We wait for something to grow and—ouch, Buck, that actually hurt—we _eat it!”_

Bucky topples the book from his hands and throws his body over it so that Steve can’t read any more. And then, when they both have caught their breaths, Bucky says, “I think it’s time we talked.”

Steve is collapsed over Bucky, stomach still spasming from the giggles. But he sits up straight for this and looks his friend in the eyes.

He’s been anticipating this. Steve has been getting sloppy with his expressions as of late, and Bucky catches a growing percentage of these lingering glances. Bucky has never been an idiot about these things; he’s intuitive. Steve knows when he’s been caught.

“Okay, Buck. Shoot.”

“Let’s go for a walk.”

 

\---

 

Outside, the wind blows, and the sun shines on several inches of snow. The chill of wind freezes the melted surface of the snowfall into a hard crust. Steve calms himself by trying to guess if his footfalls will break through the surface, or if the layer of ice will support his weight.

Bucky keeps pace with him, not walking ahead or following behind as he often does on their hikes. Occasionally, his shoulder will bump Steve’s. Occasionally, their hands will brush at the knuckles. But that's about it for contact as they walk.

It’s bitterly cold. The kind of cold that bites open any flesh that’s exposed. The tip of Steve’s nose is pink even in his own fuzzy, cross-eyed view of it. There’s the beginning of a frost burn forming at the dip of Steve’s throat from where the metal zipper brushes his skin. 

There is no metal left in Bucky’s left socket, thank god. Steve can’t imagine how the metal would freeze the adjoining skin. So, he doesn’t imagine it. Or at least, tries not to. He focuses on the warm brush of Bucky’s body against his. And whether or not his boot will break through the snow.

Eventually, they hit the summit of a smaller peak that overlooks the valley. Bucky stops here, looking out over the crisp white of snow on the deep green pines. Steve stops alongside him, and they look out together.

“I’m sorry, Steve,” Bucky starts, “I think I shoulda brought this up sooner.”

Sometimes, Bucky sounds a whole lot like the Brooklyn Steve left behind. It’s in the phrasing, in his mumbles. And, this too, is something that Steve can’t think too much about. It’ll make him want him too much.

“That’s okay, Bucky.”

“I’m remembering a lot more, these days. Mostly about you.” 

In his periphery, Steve can see Bucky’s eyes flick over to him. Can see the nervous knot of his fist in his coat pocket. He’s no coward. Steve Rogers turns to look his friend in the eye.

Bucky’s face is set with resolve, though his mouth wavers as he prepares the words. “I think, there’s a reason why it’s taken so long for these memories to surface. I think these were the ones they, HYDRA and the Soviets, pressed down the deepest.”

“Oh, Buck, I—”

“I remember the night after you rescued the 107th,” Bucky says, rushing over these words as if they were rehearsed. “The night after you rescued me. In the tent.”

Oh. Steve feels his face heat, a low simmer over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t want to put any pressure on you…”

Bucky takes a step closer. “I’m not accusing you of nothing, I’m…” He laughs, a purely Bucky Barnes sound that cuts straight through Steve. “I’m trying to confess something here.”

“Then confess it,” Steve says breathlessly.

“I know I’m not him. I know I’m not ever gonna be him.”

“I’m not exactly who I was either.”

“Shit, Steve.” Bucky shifts and rubs the back of his neck.  “I guess I’m wondering if you could love me, too.”

“Oh, Bucky,” Steve laughs, “I already do.”

The light that fills Bucky’s face warms Steve from the inside out.

The mid-afternoon sunlight reflects off the snow with dazzling intensity, not a soft yellow sunshine but a crisp white. Steve rests his forehead against Bucky’s, absorbing that light. Bucky shifts, touching their noses together. He exhales once, his breath rising as steam between them in the bright sunlight, and then he’s kissing Steve.

They’re kissing, they’re kissing, they’re kissing. Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are kissing, and Steve can’t get enough of it.

Bucky's hand folds over the nape of Steve’s neck, twisting his fingers into his hair. Bucky’s mouth is soft and cool from the winter chill. Steve can’t get enough of it, could eat it for every meal and still crave more. They kiss for so long that Bucky’s lips warm against Steve’s, and Steve’s nose thaws against Bucky’s. It drips some, and Steve pulls away, laughing.

“Ugh, sorry,” Steve says. He scrubs the back of his hand against his nose.

Bucky wipes his mouth, and Steve already misses the press of his hand against his neck. The bump of theirs chests. He’s gotten a taste for what it’s like to have Bucky close, and now he could eat forever.

Reading his mind, Bucky says, “Bet I can beat you back to the cabin,” his tone faintly mocking.

Like he always does, Steve rises to the taunt. They take off running and slipping down the slope, less chasing each other than toppling through the snow. It is not a very effective mode of travel. 

By the time the cabin comes into view, they are both soaked and frozen through. Bucky beats Steve into the door only because he tackles him through the threshold.

Inside, the fire is dying, and Steve tries to disentangle himself from Bucky to feed it. But Bucky has his hand fisted in the front of Steve’s jacket, dragging the zipper down. 

“Bucky, fire.”

“Steve, clothes." 

“Bucky, _fire._ ”

Bucky rips down the zipper and pushes it off his shoulders. “Fine. Go be with your precious fire.” But he’s laughing and his teeth are chattering from his frozen clothes, face alight with hectic splotches and Steve has never seen something so beautiful.

He nearly smothers the fire in his effort to fuel it as quickly as possible. It doesn’t help that Bucky has tucked his hand under Steve’s shirt and his cold fingers press up against his skin. Then they dip into the front of his pants and Steve’s brain short circuits.

“Alright, alright, clothes,” he concedes.

Bucky has already divested Steve’s jacket, sweater, and base layer. He’s now making short work of Steve’s pants, while remaining fully clothed himself. Steve peels away Bucky’s clothes with slow reverence, shaking off the slush of snow caught in the folds.

And Bucky seems to have the singular desire to distract. His mouth is a wet slide against Steve’s bare shoulder. He shivers all over, groaning. “Bucky…”

“I managed to do with one hand twice as much as you’ve done with two,” Bucky says, his breath racing across Steve’s skin. “And you’ve had double the time.”

“Oh, shut up, I’m _trying,_ ” Steve says.

But he’s not really. He’s letting his head drop to Bucky’s shoulder, his hands dip into his open pants to cup Bucky’s backside in each hand. He’s got him flat on his back on the floor, tugging his pants from his ankles, when Bucky’s demeanor shifts suddenly. He’s not here.

Naked as they are, Steve can’t expect his usual tactic—holding Bucky tight—to soothe the Winter Soldier. Acting on instinct, Steve spreads a hand wide over the center of his chest. He guides Bucky’s hand around his wrist, a sign of trust. The Winter Soldier knows how breakable these bones are, the kind of leverage Steve gives away.

“Hey,” Steve says softly, “I’m here.”

Then he takes two, exaggerated breaths. As he was hoping, Bucky mimics him. Bucky’s face is still clenched tight with confusion—his brow pressed low over his eyes, lips pursed—but he’s listening. He’s here.

“I’m here,” Steve repeats, “And I would never hurt you.”

“Steve?” he says, trying it out.

“Bucky,” Steve affirms.

“Oh, I…” he clenches his teeth, an embarrassed grit, “I forgot.” 

He doesn’t sound like himself; his perfectly monotone speech is too calm for the unrest on his face. But he’s not lashing out, either. And that’s something.

Steve nods, sitting up and pulling the blankets around them. Getting out of the clothes was a relief at first, but now he’s exposed and cold. Bucky watches each of Steve’s movements like a hawk, waiting.

“Let’s take a break,’ Steve suggests. “Do you want to pick a book?” He nods to their tidy double stack of novels, piled neatly next to the blankets. 

Bucky selects one that Steve found on his bookshelf in Wakanda. A dense academic text titled _The Body in Pain_ by Elaine Scarry. The title and authorial surname raise his brows, but Steve promised. He opens the book to where Bucky dogeared a page and starts at the next paragraph.

“To have great pain,” he reads, “is to have certainty; to hear another person has pain is to have doubt.”

Bucky, or maybe the Winter Soldier, nods as if this is very sage. Steve closes the book.

“I’m sorry, would you mind picking another?”

He obeys without question, and then chooses one that Steve brought, a book of poems by John Keats. They’ve tried reading it before but had to stop mid-poem when Bucky got bored and Steve got teary. He doesn’t seem to remember that now.

Bucky listens quietly as Steve picks up at the beginning of “Ode to a Nightingale.” He sits stock still, knees bent and feet planted flat on the ground so that he might make a quick escape.

“Darkling, I listen,” Steve reads, “and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful death.”

Bucky, or the Winter Soldier, snorts. “Death isn’t so easy.”

Steve nods. He’s been there, he would know. They both would. “I think he’s about to explain what he means.”

Bucky lifts his brows as if to say, _Well go on, then._

“Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme, to take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than…” Steve glances up to Bucky. “What are you laughing at now?” 

“Dunno. It’s just kinda fruity.” The sardonic expression on his face is all Bucky. He’s here again.

“Some people like fruity.”

“Some people are fruits.”

Steve closes the book and gets a look at its cover, at the impressionable face of the poet. “The guy seems really broken up about this nightingale. I hope—"

“I’ve never met anybody like you, Steve,” Bucky interrupts, not quite serious now, but soft-spoken. “I don’t know if there is anybody like you.”

Compliments have never sat well in Steve’s stomach. He sets the book aside. “Sounds like you’re feeling, uh…better.”

Bucky pats his knee and shifts to sit closer to him. “Sorry I spooked. I’m ready now.” He presses another kiss under the hook of Steve’s jaw, sighs down the column of his throat.

“Would it help if you took the lead?”

“This isn’t like dancing,” Bucky says. “We’re both in the lead.”

Steve blushes, closes his eyes, remembers that healthy sex is about communication, and says, “I meant who’s going to top.”

And Bucky, Bucky laughs. “It makes me sad that you’re limiting us to one position.”

 

\---

 

They try again. And Steve tries not to crush him, or overwhelm him. He’s overly careful with his body, and with Bucky’s. Steve announces each touch before he even moves. He’s also trying not to watch Bucky’s face too closely.

Still, he gets caught. 

“I’m not gonna break,” Bucky says. Steve is propped up over him, their chest just barely skimming. “Sit on my hips.”

Steve is going to explode from blushing if Bucky keeps up like this. His sensibilities are more modern than Steve’s, it seems. Nonetheless, Steve takes the suggestion, knees folding up against Bucky’s hips like he’s a frog. It doesn’t feel very sexy, but Bucky looks up at him like he’s carved by Michelangelo.

“Woah,” he whistles, pressing a thumb into the dimple of his hip, eyes locked...southward. “Can I touch this?”

Steve clears his throat, and nods.

Bucky grins, and it’s the kind of grin that weakens Steve. The kind of grin that makes him want to give him everything he owns.

“You sure? I don’t hafta—”

“Touch me,” Steve says, blushing. Not quite hiding his face, but he’s not really sure which way to angle it either. How was he ever so confident about this? How did he not realize that this was _Bucky_ here and present and himself and _here._

Bucky spits into his palm and wraps it around him, taking a firm grasp. “Je- _sus,_ Steve. I can’t remember, was it always this big or is this proportional?”

“Oh my god,” Steve laughs, letting go of some of the anxiety. Bucky’s effect is magical like that, always has been. 

Still stroking over him, he bucks up against the cleft of Steve’s ass, a dry and leisurely rub against him.

Steve groans. “We don’t have lubrication. I didn't pack any.” 

Bucky laughs. “What a Steve Rogers thing to say.”

“Not packing it?”

“And calling it _lubrication._ You’re killing me.”

“This is a problem, Buck,” Steve says, verging on nervous now. He’s read the Planned Parenthood pamphlets about safe sex, but he doubts Bucky has. Maybe HYDRA has normalized dry penetration and—

“I can see you worrying,” Bucky says, bumping his knee up to jostle Steve. “You’re over thinking this. I’ve gone without befo—” 

“No,” Steve says with a sharpness that Bucky responds to with solemnity. “No lubrication, no deal.”

“Okay, Steve,” Bucky thinks this over for a moment, coming to some conclusion in his head that twists his mouth into a grin. “But I don’t need lube to give you head. We can go down into town tomorrow.”

He’s right. Bucky’s always right. Steve shares Bucky’s grin at his expense and ducks down to kiss him, bracing himself on one arm. “God help this rural mountain Walmart.”

“They won’t know what hit ‘em,” Bucky agrees, but there’s a slur in his speech now that their bodies are pressed together.

Bucky rolls his hips up, and their lengths slide together. The head of Steve’s cock drags along the underside of Bucky’s, the slit trailing a shiny line of precum.

Steve hasn’t touched himself in…gosh, has it really been a whole year now? He’s sensitive, a hair trigger.

“Steve, doll.” Bucky grinds his hips up and says, “You’re something else.”

And Steve comes.

He’d deserve it, but Bucky doesn’t laugh at him. Well, he gives one incredulous “Ha!” but nothing else. Just pumps his hand over Steve as he orgasms, slicking him with his own come. A true friend, Bucky.

He rubs his fingers together, then spread apart. “That was enough for you, huh?”

“Yeah, okay, I had it coming.”

“Only because I had you coming,” Bucky says and when Steve shoots him a look, he adds, “What? You made it too easy.”

He’s stroking over himself lazily now, almost as if he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. The smirk he’s shooting Steve says otherwise.

Steve leans up. “You think, I could, uh, watch?”

“Sure,” Bucky says, stretching out under Steve’s attention. 

Steve absorbs him with rapture. Bucky is slimmer than he was when Steve found him in HYDRA capture. His body is soft in places it’s never been soft, around his stomach and thighs. Steve is softer too. He thinks he likes it.

“Think you can go again?” Bucky asks, lifting his eyebrows at Steve’s…rising interest. “I got another trick you might like.” 

He readjusts his grip somehow, not only holding Steve now but himself. Holding both of them together, so that when he squeezes, Steve can feel every bump and vein of him. They're a perfect fit. 

It wasn’t until now that Steve realizes he was missing a piece of himself. No, not just a piece. An entire fraction, half of himself. Just gone. And Steve is under no illusions that Bucky will replace the missing part of him, but he doesn’t need him to. Bucky fills the empty space with light.

Steve wraps his hand around Bucky’s, eyes on his. When Bucky gives him a slack-jawed smile, a soft panting, _Yes, Steve, yes,_ Steve gains some confidence. He guides the stroke of their hands, fingers twitching against Bucky’s.

The heat grows between them, crawling up Steve’s thighs to settle low in his stomach. Groaning, Steve drops his head to rest against Bucky’s, looking down between their bodies. Bucky’s skin shines with sweat and on impulse, Steve ducks down and licks a stripe from his navel to the base of his throat. Salt fills his senses as he rubs his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

He licks his lower lip and glances down to Bucky’s cock in his hand, the curve of it into the pocket of skin between Steve’s index and thumb. If the salt of his stomach tasted so good…

“Can I?” Steve says.

There’s some hesitation from Bucky, but it seems to be on Steve’s behalf. “Are you sure? Bad memories and—”

“I want to,” Steve affirms, pressing his clean hand to Bucky’s cheek. Bucky leans into his touch, wholly trusting as he’s always been.

When Steve first smuggled him here, he did it without a second of doubt. It was his only course of action, so he took it. The doubt didn’t settle in until he was driving through the American countryside. That was when it occurred to Steve that he had just gone expressly against Bucky’s wishes. A complete violation of his autonomy. He’d expected a fight. He’d feared a return to Wakanda with his tail between his legs.

But Bucky had trusted him at every turn. Because Bucky always trusts him. 

“Okay, Steve,” Bucky says, tucking his arm behind his head and grinning. “But only if you want to.” 

Bucky is the picture of ease and confidence. But Steve can see the edge of doubt in the shift of his eyes, the knot of muscle flexing in his jaw. Seeking to ease, Steve presses a kiss to that jaw. His nose brushes his cheek. There, Bucky smells of pine and dust and sweat and _Steve._

The moment the thought floats to his tongue, Steve says, “I love you.”

That gets a chuckle from Bucky. He settles below Steve, the tension dissolving from his muscles. It’s a good sight, fills Steve up.

“Yeah, I figured,” Bucky says, “I love you, too.”

Steve’s face can barely contain its smile. He ducks his head and rubs his tongue along the underside of Bucky’s cock, just to get it wet enough. Then he takes Bucky into his mouth, twisting his hand over what won’t fit down his throat. He bobs his head slowly, struggling against the clench of his gag reflex. 

It’s overwhelming. Bucky is thick enough to spring tears to Steve’s eyes, triggering a clench in the muscles of his arms and legs. Adrenaline thrums through him. As if his body is primed to fight the pressure in his throat.

But then Bucky’s hand is in his hair, thumb circling his temple.

“Ease up,” he croaks. “It’s okay, just—”

Steve hadn’t realized how deep he’d taken him, or for how long. Bucky’s face is nearly purple, fist balled against his hip with restraint. Steve leans back and rubs the back of his hand over his mouth.

"I'm okay," Steve says, "Just...more than I can chew and all that."

Bucky rubs his thumb over Steve’s lower lip, slick with spit. He doesn’t have to speak for Steve to read what’s posted all over his face, “You’re gorgeous.”

Steve’s face heats. He tries again, just sucking the head now and rubbing his tongue into the slit. It was the taste he was after anyway. The salt and musk rolls over his tongue, settling by his molars.

And Bucky, his stomach spasms and his breathing comes out in shaky bursts. Steve watches his face, laid open with pleasure. When he tucks the tip of his tongue into the slit, Bucky’s thumb digs into the hook of Steve’s jaw.

Steve still doesn’t need much. He flexes his hips down against the cup of his palm, and he’s coming. Inadvertently, his tongue pushes up against Bucky’s cock. His teeth graze just below the glans.

“Gonna—” Bucky says, but he can’t get the rest out before he’s coming, too.

Steve swallows all of it, then tongues his cheek and gums, looking for more. Bucky leans up to watch him. Feeling emboldened by the blissed-out haze in Bucky’s eyes, Steve opens his mouth to show him what he’s gathered on his tongue. 

“Oh, thanks for that.” Bucky twitches, laughing and wrinkling his nose up at his friend.  “Tomorrow, I’m gonna ride you like a horse.”

Steve has heard this expression before, but it sounds much dirtier in Bucky’s mouth. “ _Jesus_ ,” Steve hisses through his teeth. “You’ve got a mouth on you.”

Bucky opens his mouth. Closes it. “Too easy.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

It takes Bucky a beat to get that Steve’s ribbing him. Then he laughs, that sparkling Bucky Barnes laugh that prickles tears in his eyelashes and shows his gums. It’s not Bucky’s handsomest smile, or even his most beautiful smile, but it’s Steve’s favorite.

It reminds him of playing baseball in the alley, of learning dance steps in their apartment. It reminds him of Bucky drunk and trying to tell Steve a dirty joke he just heard, but he can’t stop laughing for long enough to tell him. It’s Bucky’s naked smile, the one he never has to put on or try to make, because it’s just _him._

Bucky doesn’t know how truly _Bucky_ he is. He thinks he’s so far from who he was, but Steve knows that every part of him is still Bucky. And that he’s been Bucky all along. Every reaction to trauma, every battle fought and lost. Every delight at recovery—that’s Bucky.

And as Steve leans up to kiss his mouth, he still thinks, _That’s Bucky._ And when Bucky tugs him down, guides Steve into resting his head on his chest, Steve looks across his empty shoulder and thinks,  _That's Bucky._

Because he is, and Steve has him, and they’ve finally gone home.

 

* * *

END

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There were points where I genuinely thought that I wouldn't finish this, but your collective encouragement and enthusiasm got me through. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

**Author's Note:**

> You can yell at me at barb-aricyawp.tumblr.com


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